The invention relates to a crane having at least one apparatus for determining the effective counterweight of said crane comprising at least one receiver for receiving at least one counterweight body; at least one coupling that is configured to pivotably couple the receiver with the further structure of the crane; and at least one abutment that is configured to limit the pivot range of the receiver.
In cranes known from the prior art, at least one counterweight provides a torque that counteracts the load borne by the crane. The applied counterweight in this respect substantially contributes to the stability of the crane.
The load torque restriction devices or load torque restriction apparatus or load torque restriction methods used in cranes make use of the amount of the effective counterweight or the effective mass and the corresponding effective lever arm in calculations on the stability of the crane. It is known in this context that the crane operator or another operator manually inputs the data required to carry out the load torque restriction.
It can happen in this process that unintended error inputs take place. This can happen, for example during the erection of a long boom of a crane. When carrying out crane work by means of an already equipped crane, the whole suspended ballast is not required, unlike in the procedure of setting up the crane, and it can happen that a sufficiently large ballast on the superstructure is sufficient for balancing. To increase the torque exerted on the crane by the ballast present, the crane operator can, for example, remove ballast plates from the superstructure of the crane and place them on the suspended ballast. After the erection of the crane, the suspended ballast can be removed and the crane can work only with the superstructure ballast. It is, however, important here to place the ballast plates previously restacked back onto the crane superstructure again. In accordance with another example, the crane control can have an erroneous counterweight stored that is too large. In this case, the boom could be luffed up too far, which could also result in a tilting backward of the crane.